In the days when they had required morning chapel at Yale a great many students came to chapel either without any breakfast or with unassorted junks of it in their stomachs engaged in civil war. One early morning I was walking up Elm Street in New Haven; the streets ware filled with undergraduates sprinting to chapel. The lady with me said: “Do look at those poor boys running to chapel with their tongues hanging out!” I set her right at once. “Those are not tongues, those are griddle cakes!”
Those young men were accurate calculators. Three minutes for breakfast, one minute to reach chapel. They hurried the last griddle cake into their faces as they left the dining hall, and it gradually disappeared as they ran.
I love to see the whole family assemble at breakfast and eat a good meal leisurely. In order to accomplish this, every one must get up early enough to allow for complete preparation in the way of bathing, shaving, etc., and then leave enough time to consume food in peace of mind. Of how many families is this true? Of course, there are many persons who like to eat breakfast in bed, and perhaps, there are some who can do this neatly, even artistically. I never eat breakfast in bed unless I am too sick to get up, for I hate to have crumbs all over my night clothes or inside the bed. Furthermore, in spite of considerable practice during various illnesses, I have never mastered the fine art of swallowing food while in a horizontal position. To take coffee in this manner is an achievement. And what is breakfast without coffee?
Although coffee is not an American product, I have never had a satisfactory cup of coffee outside of the United States of America. Americans alone seem to understand the secret of good coffee. The English meet this problem illegitimately, by substituting tea. Now tea is all very well in the late afternoon, but in the morning it is without inspiration. And every man ought to start the day in an inspired manner.
G. K. Chesterton says that Bernard Shaw is like coffee; he stimulates but does not inspire. I should amend that, by saying Shaw is like coffee because he stimulates but does not nourish. For I firmly believe that both Shaw and coffee are alike in this: they do both stimulate and inspire, but they do not nourish. I used to wonder what Chesterton could possibly mean by saying that coffee did not inspire, when suddenly the true explanation occurred to me. He was thinking of English coffee.
The newspaper should not be read during the sacred rite of breakfast. There is no doubt that many divorces have been caused by the man’s opening and reading the newspaper at breakfast, thereby totally eclipsing his wife. It is simply a case of bad manners, and bad manners at food have in thousands of instances extinguished the fires of love. Nor, although it is a common custom, do I believe that letters should be opened and read at the breakfast table. One letter may contain enough worry, disappointment and anger to upset a reader for hours. And to eat food while one is angry, or worried, or excited is almost as bad as eating poison. I never read letters at breakfast and I never read letters in the evening.
For the same reason breakfast should be eaten in a calm and peaceful state of mind, illuminated by happy family conversation. Many men every day eat breakfast in feverish haste and then run to catch a trolley car or a train. That horrible breakfast soon begins to assert itself, and the man is in an irritable condition all the morning. It simply does not pay to eat in a hurry. Breakfast should not resemble a delirium.
And at the breakfast table all the members of the party should eat or leave the room. It is a sad experience to be in a hotel or in a dining car and have some acquaintance come up briskly and say: “I have already had my breakfast, but I will sit and talk with you while you eat yours.” That means he intends to watch you eat, and, just as your mouth is full of food, he will ask you a question. I have observed many patient men suffering tortures in this manner. I have even observed an enormous mass of unchewed food distend their throats as they hastily bolt it in the endeavor to reply to interrogations. A snake may swallow a toad, but the snake’s constitution differs from a man’s.
If I could have only one meal a day, it would be breakfast. After a good American breakfast—orange juice, cereal, coffee, toast, bacon and eggs—I am ready for everything and anything. If the day begins in the right manner its progress will be satisfactory. And the best of all rules of diet is to eat what you like and take the time to do it.